Overview
Endomychids feed on a wide variety of fungi, but little is known about the feeding habits of most Australian species.
Description
Broadly ovate to elongate and globose to moderately flattened beetles, glabrous or clothed with decumbent and erect hairs, often brightly patterned with red or yellow and black. Frontoclypeal suture present; antennae moderately long, usually with relatively loose club; maxillary palps fusiform, although labial palps may be securiform; 2nd tarsal segment commonly lobed, extending beneath reduced 3rd segment; tarsal claws simple; femoral lines on first ventrite lacking (except in a few exotic species).
Larvae usually oblong to ovate (rarely elongate), slightly to strongly flattened, usually with lateral tergal processes on all thoracic and most abdominal segments and only rarely with short urogomphi. In
Encymon immaculatus
these processes are spinose and deciduous, breaking off when grasped by a predator. Antennae often long (with segment 2 elongate and 1 and 3 reduced), their sockets well separated from the mandibular articulations; head often broad at base and strongly narrowed towards the mouth-parts; mala obtuse.
Distribution
The widely distributed
Trochoideus desjardinsi
, known to inhabit termite fungus gardens in Java (Kemner 1924), is a general fungus feeder on Christmas and Cocos-Keeling Is.
Mycetaea subterranea
and
Holoparamecus depressus
are introduced contaminants of mouldy food stores. The largest number of species occur in
Stenotarsus
and
Periptyctus
; the latter is a peculiar endemic group occurring in leaf litter in wet montane habitats. [Sasaji 1978; Lea 1922b; Strohecker 1953.]